Mirror Image
by SunnyZim
Summary: Coda to 6.03. Dean's words cause Sam to examine himself. What does he see? A possible explanation as to why Sam is so different since coming back from Hell.


**A/N: This is my first foray into writing _Supernatural _fanfiction, something I swore to myself I would never do simply because it is so darn tricky! After reading an article on IMDB however, which suggested that the reason for Sam's behaviour may be due to the fact that he doesn't have a soul, this just wouldn't leave me alone until it was written. So. Yeah. I would love to hear your thoughts;-)**

**Mirror Image**

_You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body._

_~ CS Lewis ~_

Sam gripped the edge of the chipped basin as he stared into the mirror. Water trickled down his face from where he had splashed it moments before, dripping unheeded on to his shirt and the floor. The lighting was not very good, but it was enough to see the stranger staring out of the glass. Empty green eyes looked back at him, the absence of what should have been there leaving him….cold. The total lack of _something _should have chilled him to the bone, but instead it left him unmoved, indifferent.

_Something's different with you. You know that? _Dean's words echoed in his mind, rattling around inside his skull. Yes, he knew that. He knew it better than Dean did. He brushed it off to Dean as a mere result of his roughing it for a year, but deep down he realised that Dean wouldn't buy that. _Hoped _that Dean wouldn't buy that, even though the fallout if and when he discovered the truth would put the apocalypse to shame.

Sam had not lied when he said that his memories of Hell didn't bother him. He could remember Hell, every gory detail, but those memories didn't touch him. They couldn't. It was supremely weird to be able to remember being shredded and sliced and ripped apart, filled with the taste of your own blood, and yet to feel nothing at those memories; no fear, no dread, no torment. Nothing. It was like being an onlooker to your own death, like an out of body experience where you could see what was happening and yet somehow it wasn't you.

But Sam didn't just remember being tormented. Another voice, sly and insidious, took over whispering in his brain, an echo from a year ago: _Sam, I can help you. I can save you. You don't have to stay here. Haven't you done enough? Haven't you sacrificed enough? Let me help you Sam. I can give you your life back._

At the time, it seemed too good to be true. A way out, freedom, he could see _Dean _again. But life as a hunter and a Winchester had taught Sam an important lesson – there's no such thing as a free lunch or a free ticket out of Hell. There's _always _a catch.

_What do you want? _he'd gurgled around the blood and other bodily fluids filling his mouth.

The being, whatever it was, had smiled (or so Sam surmised – it was hard to see clearly from his angle on the rack), and responded without hesitation: _Nothing you won't be glad to lose, Sam. _

And that was that. _Nothing you won't be glad to lose. _For after all he had been through, it was indeed a blessing not to be able to feel the aftershocks. He remembered how Dean was when he came back from Hell and Sam was truly grateful that he had escaped a similar fate. For the past year, he had counted himself lucky to simply be alive and relatively unscathed. He was a better hunter than ever, untroubled by what he had lost, by what he had given up. But now that Dean was back and asking questions, probing….he was starting to doubt. And watching Cas dig around in that kid today….It made him begin to question what he'd done. Sam had to admit that he had been curious to see what Cas would do, curious because that kid, scrawny as he was, had something that Sam didn't, wouldn't have again. He had wanted to see what it looked like. And having seen it, having heard Cas talk about the untold power of human souls, he had felt empty. More empty. Perhaps he had been too quick to throw away the pain of being human. Perhaps Dean was right about him, and what he had become was inherently wrong. Perhaps.

Sam shook these morbid thoughts away as a dog would shake away a fly. There was no point in dwelling on them because what was done was done. Sam could not afford to feel regret, indeed he was _unable _to feel regret. If Dean found out, then, well, Sam would have to deal with that then. But for now, he had a job to do. Without a second glance at the mirror, Sam turned his back on the coldness reflected there and walked out. The door swung shut with a click.

The End

**A/N: Feedback is always appreciated;-)**


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